Florida’s Freaky Fridays : Metal Detectors and Inheritance Scams

In our ongoing look at the weird world of Florida, we bring you all sorts of odd, strange or peculiar – and whatever other synonyms for weird we can google – tales from the Sunshine State.

If you want to experience the sun, sea and strangeness for yourself, you can book your holiday to Florida here.

Man legally changes his name to web address

What’s in a name? Shakespeare didn’t think it mattered much. Well, until you remember his name might not have been William Shakespeare – people weren’t that fussed about exact spellings of names back in the day. Would his plays have been as successful if he was called Amanda Huggankiss, Ivor Biggun or Ben Elton? Maybe not. Eddie Gonzalez definitely thinks names are important, that’s why he legally got his changed… to VoteforEddie.com.

This story would have been more excellent if Eddie wasn’t running as a candidate for the US House of Representatives. It would also probably make introductions shorter. It being a web address, no spaces appear in his name. So, if he was to introduce himself James Bond style, how would that work?

“Hi, I’m Jim and you are?”

“Hey, Jim, I’m .com, VoteforEddie.com”

That actually works pretty well, like he’s a cyborg or a 30 Rock entourage member. Really though, Eddie just wants his domain name to appear on the ballot when the election rolls around in November. And because he legally changed his name to the address, the Florida State Department can do nothing about it. An independent candidate for a seat in the 25th Congressional District in Florida the Daily Mail reported he needed another way to get his message out : “Since I’m not under the wings or good graces of both political parties, I had to find a different way to get my message out there,” he said.

Woman makes up fake inheritance, receives real money

Everyone knows lies make baby Jesus cry. It’s a scientific fact. So, really we shouldn’t lie, not even harmless white lies, like “yes the food was lovely” and “no, those earrings don’t make you look like an Armenian prostitute.” However, if you are going to lie, you might as well make it a big one.

That was almost certainly the logic behind Morgan Johnson’s decision to tell friends she was about to receive quite a financial windfall. The Fort Myers woman spent some eight months telling friends that she was about to inherit six or seven businesses worth around $1 billion (when it’s worth that much, specific figures become meaningless), oh, and also an aircraft worth $20 million, because who doesn’t have an uncle with an airplane? No one, that’s who.

Of course, lying to be people about your aeronautical relations is one thing, then asking your friends for some money to clear up your debts and promising to pay them back when the inheritance comes through, is altogether more insidious. When the facts are laid out like this, it seems pretty obvious that the entire thing was a scam (also I’ve made it quite clear in the first paragraph it was a scam), however the lovable rogue also forged bank documents and statements that were then made available to the generous donators.

Altogether, the Floridian scamp got away with $46,000. Eventually the pennies dropped and Morgan was shopped to the cops. She was arrested and released on bail on May 25, 2012.

There’s nothing like an unneccessarily over-the-top wedding proposal to make a woman feel good about herself and the rest of the world feel smugly superior. When a man has the prefix “Doctor” to his name, then you know he’s got to have quite a lot of synaptic action going on in his brainbox, either that or he’s really good at playing piano. Well it turns out Dr Steve Carr is not the brightest diamond in the jewellery shop.

After deciding to ask his girlfriend to marry him, he buried the ring in the sand and hoped that his girlfriend would find the engagement ring while the two dug around in it, for some reason. Then he forgot where he buried it.

Fearing the worst, he recruited a dozen or sofellow beachgoers to help find the ring but to no avail. Two hours went by and he did the only sensible thing he could do and got himself a metal detecting expert (who presumably came complete with a metal detector) who found it within minutes.

The brain surgeon (yes, Brain Surgeon!) admitted afterwards it might not have been his best idea.

Still, though, his girlfriend Miss Naam was unperturbed by the events and finally did agree to marry him. He is a doctor after all.

Airplane door lands on golf course

When Tiger Woods first swung his way on to golf’s cosy firmament back in the day, his ridiculous power off the tee rather shook things up. Golf courses had to fight back and ensure their designers weren’t made to look silly by a man whose golfing ability was only matched by his considerable desire to cheat on his wife. To do so, they stuck in some hazards and extended their top courses by vast amounts.

Now a golf course near the Westin Diplomat Hotel & Spa has come up with another novel way of hindering those that have followed in the Tiger’s footsteps, stick an airplane door in the way.

OK, in reality the door detached itself from an actual airplane shortly after it took off and plunged handle first (maybe) towards two Floridian condos, before crashing through some trees and sliding a dozen or so feet onto the course.

There were no injuries on the course as, luckily, it was closed for one of only two days for maintenance.